Checkmate Hosting

How Checkmate works

Checkmate runs scheduled checks against supported targets and records whether each one responds as expected. HTTP, ping, TCP, gRPC, WebSocket, DNS, certificate, PageSpeed, infrastructure, Docker, and game-server monitors cover different surfaces. Incidents are created from failed checks, and public status pages communicate selected service health to users.

Machine-level metrics require the separate Capture agent documented by the project. Notification channels can forward incidents to communication or paging services. The catalogue packages an internal Mongo service with the application even though the public mapping does not assign a PostgreSQL or MariaDB requirement, so the plan is selected from the exported application RAM without the relational-database step-up.

Key Checkmate features

Endpoint monitors cover availability and response validation, while SSL checks track certificate state. Infrastructure and Docker views add host or container signals when the required agent or connection is installed. PageSpeed monitoring records performance-oriented results separately from basic uptime.

Status pages present a public subset of monitors and incidents under a customer-facing address. Maintenance windows distinguish planned work from unexpected downtime. Notification integrations include Slack, Telegram, Discord, webhooks, and other channels documented by the project, although each destination needs its own credentials and testing.

Checkmate vs Better Stack

Checkmate is a self-hosted monitoring dashboard for uptime, infrastructure, containers, certificates, PageSpeed, incidents, alerts, and status pages. Better Stack is a managed observability and incident platform that provides hosted uptime checks, status pages, incident communication, escalation, and on-call workflows without requiring the customer to operate the monitoring application.

Better Stack may suit teams that want provider-operated alert delivery and incident response tooling. Checkmate is attractive when monitor history, configuration, and status pages should remain on self-hosted infrastructure, provided the operator maintains the application, notification integrations, and any server agents.

Who uses Checkmate

Hosting teams monitor public services and certificates, developers track application endpoints, and small operations groups publish a status page without assembling several separate monitoring components. The Capture agent can extend the dashboard with server metrics when a trusted machine is configured to report them.

Monitoring quality depends on check placement, frequency, and alert design. A service can appear healthy from one network while failing elsewhere, and overly sensitive thresholds can create noise. Choose representative checks, test incident routing, and avoid treating a single dashboard as the only evidence during an outage.

Self-hosting Checkmate: requirements and cost

Resource use follows monitor count, check frequency, response validation, metric collection, retained history, dashboards, status-page traffic, and alert processing. The catalogue mapping lists PostgreSQL and MariaDB as Not required; the packaged stack includes its own internal Mongo service. Plan selection therefore follows the exported application requirement without a relational-database adjustment.

AvaHost maps Checkmate to Plan 2 at €5. One-click deployment, a custom monitoring or status-page domain, automated HTTPS, automatic application updates, and scheduled backups are included. Application email is disabled, so email alerts are unavailable; supported Slack, Telegram, Discord, webhook, and other independently configured channels remain available.